Beyond the emergency personnel was a semicircle of neighborhood people. Maybe the noise had woken them, or perhaps they’d already been starting their day when they heard the commotion. It was after five now, the sky turning a pale electric blue.

The kind of people who show up at accident scenes are often derided as morbid sightseers, but more than once they’ve supported my faith that people essentially want to help each other. One woman, seeing my drenched clothes, went to retrieve a long-sleeved thermal shirt and sweatpants that belonged to her husband; I gratefully accepted them and awkwardly changed in the crew space of the fire engine at the curb, taking an extra moment afterward to sit and draw strength from the dry warmth and unfamiliar musk of the clothes before emerging again to see the aftermath of the terrible little tragedy.

I found the body about where I expected to. The intensity of the spring runoff had created a vertical nest of branches and twigs up against the opening where the canal went under the street. The barrier had caught all kinds of things in its embrace, beer cans and scraps of tarpaulin, the plastic rings that hold six-packs together. And amid all of that, the soft flesh of a little boy.

“You need to get looked at,” Shigawa said now, by my side. “Why don’t you ride back in with us?”

“No,” I said. “I’m all right.”

“There are infections you can get,” Shigawa said. “You should see a doctor.”

“No,” I said flatly. I disliked sounding argumentative, but I couldn’t tell Shigawa the reason behind my refusal. Everyone’s afraid of something, and in my case, it’s going to the doctor.

“Actually,” a new voice intervened, “we’re going to need Detective Pribek for a statement. That’ll be downtown.”

It was Roz. I didn’t know her well, but felt very grateful to her just then. “She’s right,” I said to Shigawa. To Roz, I said, “I have to drive my own car. It’s around here somewhere, and that way you won’t have to bring me back afterward.”